
ROSE AND ROOf-TREE- 



G P'.ATHROP-! 





# 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS J 

^J #P2"9^^i 1^0- 



I UNITED STATUES OF AMERICA.! 




JESSAMINE. See p. 74. 



Rose and Roof -Tree 



POEMS 



GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP 




B O S lU) N 
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY 

1875 




IT 






Copyright, 1875, by George Parsons Lathrop 



RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 

STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 

H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 



Upon the enchanted ladder of his rhymes, 
Round after round and patiently 
The poet ever upward climbs. 



DEDICATION. 

I need give my verse no hint as to whom it sings for. 
The rose, k7iowing her owtt right, makes servitors of 
the light-rays to carry her color. So every line here 
shall in some sense breathe of thee, and in its very face 
bear record of her ivho7n, however unworthily, it seeks 
to serve and honor. 



CONTENTS. 



WINDFALLS. 

PAGE 

Rose and Roof-Tree 13 

Music of Growth 16 

A Song Long Ago 17 

Melancholy 18 

Contentment 19 

PART FIRST. 

An April Aria 23 

The Bobolink 25 

The Sun-Shower 26 

June Longings 27 

A Rune of the Rain 28 

The Song-Sparrow 34 

Fairhaven Bay 37 

Chant for Autumn 40 

Before the Snow 43 

The Ghosts of Growth 45 

The Lily-Fond 46 



X CONTENTS. 

PART SECOND. 

PAGE 

First Glance 51 

"The Sunshine of thine Eyes" .... 52 

*' When, looking deeply in thy Face " • • 53 

Within a Year 54 

The Singing Wire 56 

Moods of Love : 

I. In Absence 59 

II. Heart's Fountain 60 

III. South- Wind Song 61 

IV. The Lover's Year 62 

V. New Worlds 63 

VI. Wedding-Night 64 

Love's Defeat 65 

May and Marriage 67 

The Fisher of the Cape 69 

Sailor's Song 70 

Jessamine . 74 

Grief's Hero 79 

A Face in the Street 83 

The Bather 84 

Helen at the Loom ... . . 88 

" O Wholesome Death " 93 

Burial-Song for Sumner 94 

Arise, American ! loi 

THE SILENT TIDE 104 



WINDFALLS. 



ROSE AND ROOF-TREE. 

O WAYWARD rose, why dost thou wreathe 
so high, 
Wasting thyself in sweet-breath'd ecstasy ? 

" The pulses of the wind my life uplift. 
And through my sprays I feel the sunlight sift ; 

" And all my fibres, in a quick consent 
Entwined, aspire to fill their heavenward bent. 

" I feel the shaking of the far-off sea, 
And all things growing blend their life with me : 

" When men and women on me look, there glows 
Within my veins a life not of the rose. 

" Then let me grow, until I touch the sky, 
And let me grow and grow until I die ! " 



14 ROSE AND ROOF-TREE. ■ 

So, every year, the sweet rose shooteth higher, 
And scales the roof upon its wings of fire, 

And pricks the air, in lovely discontent, 
With thorns that question still of its intent. 

But when it reached the roof-tree, there it clung, 
Nor ever farther up its blossoms flung. 

O wayward rose, why hast thou ceased to climb ? 
Hast thou forgot the ardor of thy prime ? 

" O hearken ! " — thus the rose-spray, listening, — 
" With what weird music sweet these full hearts 
ring ! 

" What mazy ripples of deep, eddying sound, 
Rise, touch the roof-tree old, and drift around, 

" Bearing aloft the burden musical 
Of joys and griefs from human hearts that fall ! 

" Green stem and fair, flush'd circle I will lay 
Along the roof, and listen here alway ; 



ROSE AND ROOF-TREE. 15 

" For rose and tree, and every leafy growth 
That toward the sky unfolds with spiry blowth, 

" No pinpose hath save this, to breathe a grace 
O'er men, and in men's hearts to seek a place. 

" Therefore, O poet, thou who gav'st to me 
The homage of thy humble sympathy, 

" No longer vest thy verse in rose-leaves frail : — 
Let the heart's voice loud through thy paean 
wail ! " 



Lo, at my feet the wind of autumn throws 
A hundred turbulent blossoms of the rose, 

Full of the voices of the sea and grove 
And air, and full of hidden, murmured love, 

AikI warm with passion through the roof-tree 

sent ; 
Dew-drenched with tears ; — all in one wild gush 

spent ! 



MUSIC OF GROWTH. 

Music is in all growing things ; 

And underneath the silky wings 
Of smallest insects there is stirred 
A pulse of air that must be heard. 

Earth's silence lives, and throbs, and sings. 

If poet from the vibrant strings 
Of his poor heart a measure flings, 
Laugh not, that he no trumpet blows : 
It may be that Heaven hears and knows 
His language of low listenings. 



A SONG LONG AGO. 

Through the pauses of thy fervid singing 

Fell crystal sound 
That thy fingers from the keys were flinging 

Lightly around : 
I felt the vine-like harmonies close clingfine: 

About my soul ; 
And to my eyes, as fruit of their sweet bringing, 

The full tear stole ! 



MELANCHOLY. 

Daughter of my nobler hope 
That dying gave thee birth, 

Sweet Melancholy! 
For memory of the dead, 
In her dear stead, 

'Bide thou with me, . 
Sweet Melancholy! 
As purple shadows to the tree, 
When the last sun-rays sadly slope 
Athwart the bare and darkening earth. 
Art thou to me, 
Sweet Melancholy ! 



CONTENTMENT. 

Glad hours have been when I have seen 

Life's scope and each dry day's intent 
United ; so that I could stand 
In silence, covering with my hand 
The circle of the universe, 
Balance the blessing and the curse, 
And trust in deeds without chagrin. 
Free from to-morrow and yesterday — content. 



PART FIRST. 



AN APRIL ARIA. 

T T THEN the mornings dankly fall 

^ ^ With a dim forethought of rain, 
And the robins richly call 
To their mates mercurial, 

And the tree-boughs creak and strain 
In the wind ; 
When the river 's rough with foam, 

And the new-made clearings smoke. 
And the clouds that go and come 
Shine and darken frolicsome, 
And the frogs at evening croak 
Undefined 
Mysteries of monotone , 

And by melting beds of snow 
Wind-flowers blossom all alone ; 

Then I know 
That the bitter winter's dead. 

Over his head 
The damp sod breaks so mellow, — 



24 AN APRIL ARIA. 

Its mosses tipped with points of yellow, —^ 

I cannot but be glad ; 
Yet this sweet mood will borrow 
Something of a sweeter sorrow, 

To touch and turn me sad. 



THE BOBOLINK. 

How sweetly sang the bobolink, 

When thou, my Love, wast nigh ! 
His liquid music from the brink 
Of some cloud-fountain seemed to sink, 
Built in the blue -domed sky. 

How sadly sings the bobolink ! 

No more my Love is nigh : 
Yet rise, my spirit, rise, and drink 
Once more from that cloud-fountain's brink, 

Once more before I die ! 



THE SUN-SHOWER. 

A PENCILED shade the sky doth sweep, 
And transient glooms creep in to sleep 

Amid the orchard ; 
Fantastic breezes pull the trees 
Hither and yon, to vagaries 

Of aspect tortured. 

Then, like the downcast dreamy fringe 
Of eyelids, when dim gates unhinge 

That locked their tears, 
Falls on the hills a mist of rain, — 
So faint, it seems to fade again ; 

Yet swiftly nears. 

Now sparkles the air, all steely-bright. 
With drops swept down in arrow-flight, 

Keen, quivering lines. 
Ceased in a breath the showery sound ; 
And teasingly, now, as I look around. 

Sweet sunlight shines ! 



JUNE LONGINGS. 

Lo, all about the lofty blue are blown 

Light vapors white, like thistle-down, 

That from their softened silver heaps opaque 

Scatter delicate flake by flake, 

Upon the wide loom of the heavens weaving 

Forms of fancies past believing. 

And, with fantastic show of mute despair, 

As for some sweet hope hurt beyond repair, 

Melt in the silent voids of sunny air. 

All day the cooing brooklet runs in tune : 

Half sunk i' th' blue, the powdery moon 

Shows whitely. Hark, the bobolink's note ! I 

hear it. 
Far and faint as a fairy spirit ! 

Yet all these pass, and as some blithe bird, wing- 
ing, 
Leaves a heart-ache for his singing, 
A frustrate passion haunts me evermore 
For that which closest dwells to beauty's core. 
O Love, canst thou this heart of hope restore ? 



A RUNE OF THE RAIN. 

I. 

O MANY-TONED rain ! 

O myriad sweet voices of the rain ! 

How welcome is its delicate overture 

At evening, when the glowing-moistur'd west 

Seals all things with cool promise of night's rest ! 

At first it would allure 
The earth to kinder mood, 
Wjth dainty flattering 
Of soft, sweet pattering : 
Faintly now you hear the tramp 
Of the fine drops falling damp 
On the dry, sun-seasoned ground 
And the thirsty leaves around. 
But anon, imbued 
With a sudden, bounding access 
Of passion, it relaxes 
All timider persuasion, 



A RUNE OF THE RAIN. 

And, with nor pretext nor occasion, 

Its wooing redoubles ; 

And pounds the ground, and bubbles 

In sputtering spray, 

Flinging itself in a fury 

Of flashing white away ; 

Till the dusty road 

Flings a perfume dank abroad, 

And the grass, and the wide-hung trees. 

The vines, the flowers in their beds. 

The vivid corn that to the breeze 

Rustles along the garden-rows. 

Visibly lift their heads, — 

And, as the shower wilder grows, 

Upleap with answering kisses to the rain. 

Then, the slow and pleasant murmur 

Of its subsiding, 

As the pulse of the storm beats firmer. 

And the steady rain 

Drops into a cadenced chiding. 

Deep-breathing rain. 

The sad and ghostly noise 

Wherewith thou dost complain, — 

Thy plaintive, spiritual voice, 



29 



30 A RUNE OF THE RAIN. 

Heard thus at close of day 

Through vaults of twilight-gray, — 

Doth vex me with sweet pain ! 

And still my soul is fain 

To know the secret of that yearning 

Which in thine utterance I hear returning: 



Hush, oh hush ! 

Break not the dreamy rush 

Of the rain : 

Touch not the marring doubt 

Words bring, to the certainty 

Of its soft refrain, 

But let the flying fringes flout 

Their gouts against the pane, 

And the gurgling throat of the water-spout 

Groan in the eaves amain. 

The earth is wedded to the shower. 

Darkness and awe, gird round the bridal-hour ! 

II. 
O many-toned rain ! 
It hath caught the strain 
Of a wilder tune, 



A RUNE OF THE RAIN. 3 1 

Ere the same night's noon, 

When dreams and sleep forsake me, 

And sudden dread doth wake me. 

To hear the booming drums of heaven beat 

The long roll to battle ; when the knotted cloud, 

With an echoing loud, 

Bursts asunder 

At the sudden resurrection of the tKunder ; 

And the fountains of the air, 

Unsealed again sweep, ruining, everywhere, 

To wrap the world in a watery winding-sheet. 

III. 
O myriad sweet voices of the rain ! 
When the airy war doth wane. 
And the storm to the east hath flown. 
Cloaked close in the whirling wind. 
There 's a voice still left behind 
In each heavy-hearted tree, 
Charged with tearful memory 
Of the vanished rain : 
From their leafy lashes wet 
Drip the dews of fresh regret 
For the lover that 's gone ! 



32 A RUNE OF THE RAIN. 

All else is still. 

But the stars are listening ; 

And low o'er the wooded hill 

Hangs, upon listless wing 

Outspread, a shape of damp, blue cloud, 

Watching, like a bird of evil 

That knows no mercy nor reprieval. 

The slow and silent death of the pallid moon. 

IV. 

But soon, returning duly, 
Dawn whitens the wet hill-tops bluely. 
To her vision pure and cold 
The night's wild tale is told 
On the glistening leaf, in the mid-road pool, 
The garden mold turned dark and cool, 
And the meadow's trampled acres. 
But hark, how fresh the song of the winged music- 
makers ! 
For now the moanings bitter. 
Left by the rain, make harmony 
With the swallow's matin-twitter, 
And the robin's note, like the wind's in a tree : 



A RUNE OF THE RAIN. 33 

The infant morning breathes sweet bre'ath, 

And with it is blent 

The wistful, wild, moist scent 

Of the grass in the marsh which the sea nourisheth : 

And behold ! 

The last reluctant drop of the storm. 

Wrung from the roof, is smitten warm 

And turned to gold ; 

For in its veins doth run 

The very blood of the bold, unsullied sun ! 



THE SONG-SPARROW. 

Glimmers gray the leafless thicket 

Close beside my garden gate, 
Where, so light, from post to picket 
Hops the sparrow, blithe, sedate ; 
Who, with meekly folded wing, 
Comes to smi himself and sing. 

It was there, perhaps, last year, 
That his little house he built ; 
For he seems to perk and peer. 
And to twitter, too, and tilt 
The bare branches in between, 
With a fond, familiar mien. 

Once, I know, there was a nest, 

Held there by the sideward thrust 
Of those twigs that touch his breast ; 

Though 'tis gone now. Some rude gust 
Caught it, over-full of snow, — 
Bent the bush, — and robbed it so. 



THE SONG-SPARROW. 35 

Thus our highest holds are lost, 
By the ruthless winter's wind, 
When, with swift-dismantling frost, 
The green woods we dwelt in, thinn'd 
Of their leafage, grow too cold 
For frail hopes of summer's mold. 

But if we, with spring-days mellow. 

Wake to woeful wrecks of change. 
And the sparrow's ritornello 

Scaling still its old sweet range ; 
Can we do a better thing 
Than, with him, still build and sing ? 

Oh, my sparrow, thou dost breed 

Thought in me beyond all telling ; 
Shootest through me sunlight, seed. 
And fruitful blessing, with that welling 
Ripple of ecstatic rest, 
Gurgling ever from thy breast ! 

And thy breezy carol spurs 

Vital motion in my blood. 
Such as in the sapwood stirs. 

Swells and shapes the pointed bud 



36 THE SONG-SPARROW. 

Of the lilac ; and besets 

The hollows thick with violets. 

Yet I know not any charm 

That can make the fleeting time 
Of thy sylvan, faint alarm 
Suit itself to human rhyme : 

And my yearning rhythmic word 
Does thee grievous wrong, dear bird. 

So, however thou hast wrought 

This wild joy on heart and brain, 
It is better left untaught. 

Take thou up the song again : 
There is nothing sad afloat 
On the tide that swells thy throat ! 



FAIRHAVEN BAY. 

I PUSH on through the shaggy wood, 
I round the hill : 't is here it stood ; 
And there, beyond the crumbled walls. 
The shining Concord slowly crawls, 

Yet seems to make a passing stay. 
And gently spreads its lilied bay. 
Curbed by this green and reedy shore, 
Up toward the ancient homestead's door. 

But dumbly sits the shattered house, 
And makes no answer : man and mouse 
Long since forsook it, and decay 
Chokes its deep heart with ashes gray. 

On what was once a garden-ground 
Dull red-bloomed sorrels now abound ; 
And boldly whistles the shy quail 
Within the vacant pasture's pale. 



3 8 FAIRHA VEN BA V. 

Ah, strange and savage, where he shines. 
The sun seems staring through those pines 
That once the vanished home could bless 
With intimate, sweet loneliness. 

The ignorant, elastic sod 

The feet of them that daily trod 

Its roods hath utterly forgot : 

The very fire-place knows them not. 

For, in the weedy cellar, thick 

The ruined chimney's mass of brick 

Lies strown. Wide heaven, with such an ease 

Dost thou, too, lose the thought of these ?' 

Yet I, although I know not who 
Lived here, in years that voiceless grew 
Ere I was born, — and never can, — 
Am moved, because I am a man. 

Oh glorious gift of brotherhood ! 

Oh sweet elixir in the blood, 

That makes us live with those long dead, 

Or hope for those that shall be bred 



FA /R HAVEN BAY. 39 

Hereafter ! No regret can rob 
My heart of this dehcious throb ; 
No thought of fortunes haply wrecked, 
Nor pang for nature's wild neglect. 

And, though the hearth be cracked and cold, 
Though ruin all the place enfold, 
These ashes that have lost their name 
Shall warm my life with lasting flame ! 



CHANT FOR AUTUMN. 

Veiled in visionary haze, 
Behold, the ethereal autumn days 

Draw near again ! 

In broad array, 
With a low, laborious hum 
These ministers of plenty come, 
That seem to linger, while they steal away. 

O strange, sweet charm 

Of peaceful pain. 
When yonder mountain's bended arm 
Seems wafting o'er the harvest-plain 
A message to the heart that grieves. 
And round us, here, a sad-hued rain 
Of leaves that loosen without number 
Showering falls in yellow, umber. 
Red, or russet, 'thwart the stream ! 
Now pale Sorrow shall encumber 
All too soon these lands, I deem ; 



CHANT FOR AUTUMN. 4 1 

Yet who at heart believes 

The autumn, a false friend, 

Can bring us fatal harm ? 
Ah, mist-hung avenues in dream 
Not more uncertainly extend 

Than the season that receives 

A summer's latest sfleam ! 



to' 



But the days of death advance : 

They tarry not, nor turn ! 
I will gather the ashes of summer 

In my heart, as an urn. 

Oh draw thou nearer, 
Thou 
Spirit of the distant height, 
Whither now that slender flight 
Of swallows, winging, guides my sight ! 

The hill doth seem to me 

A fading memory 
Of long delight, 

And in its distant blue 

Half-hideth from my view 
This shrinking season that must now retire ; 
And so shall hold it, hopeful, a desire 



42 CHANT FOR AUTUMN. 

And knowledge old as night and always new. 
Draw nigher ! And, with bended brow, 
I will be thy reverer 
Through the long winter's term ! 

So, when the snows hold firm. 

And the brook is dumb ; 

When sharp winds come 
To flay the hill-tops bleak, 
And whistle down the creek ; 

While the unhappy worm 
Crawls deeper down into the ground, 
To 'scape Frost's jailer on his round ; 

Thy form to me shall speak 

From the wide valley's bound, 
Recall the waving of the last bird's wing. 

And help me hope for spring. 



BEFORE THE SNOW. 

Autumn is gone : through the blue woodlands bare 
Shatters the windy rain. A thousand leaves, 

Like birds that fly the mournful Northern air, 
Flutter away from the old forest's eaves. 

Autumn is gone : as yonder silent rill, 

Slow eddying o'er thick leaf-heaps lately shed, 

My spirit, as I walk, moves awed and still. 
By thronging fancies wild and wistful led. 

Autumn is gone : alas, how long ago 

The grapes were plucked, and garnered was the 
grain ! 
How soon death settles on us, and the snow 

Wraps with its white alike our graves, our gain ! 

Yea, autumn 's gone ! Yet it robs not my mood 
Of that which makes moods dear, — some shoot 
of spring 



44 BEFORE THE SNOW. 

Still sweet within me ; or thoughts of yonder wood 
We walked in, — memory's rare environing. 

And, though they die, the seasons only take 
A ruined substance. All that 's best remains 

In the essential vision that can make 

One light for life, love, death, their joys, their 
pains. 



THE GHOSTS OF GROWTH. 

Last night it snowed ; and Nature fell asleep. 
Forest and field lie tranced in gracious dreams 
Of growth, for ghosts of leaves long dead, me- 
seems, 
Hover about the boughs ; and wild winds sweep 
O'er whitened fields full many a hoary heap 

From the storm-harvest mown by ice-bound 

streams ! 
With beauty of crushed clouds the cold earth 
teems, 
And winter a tranquil-seeming truce would keep. 

But such ethereal slumber may not bide 

The ascending sun's bright scorn — not long, I 
fear ; 

And all its visions on the golden tide 
Of mid-noon gliding off, must disappear. 

Fair dreams, farewell ! So in life's stir and pride 
You fade, and leave the treasure of a tear ! 



THE LILY-POND. 

Some fairy spirit with his wand, 
I think, has hovered o'er the dell, 

And spread this fihn upon the pond. 
And touched it with this drowsy spell. 

For here the musing soul is merged 
In moods no other scene can bring, 

And sweeter seems the air when scourged 
With wandering wild-bees' murmuring. 

One ripple streaks the little lake, 
Sharp purple-blue ; the birches, thin 

And silvery, crowd the edge, yet break 
To let a straying sunbeam in. 

How came we through the yielding wood, 
That day, to this sweet-rustling shore .-* 

Oh, there together while we stood, 
A butterfly was wafted o'er, 



THE LILY-POND. 47 

In sleepy light ; and even now 

His glimmering beauty doth return 

Upon me, when the soft winds blow, 
And lilies toward the sunlight yearn. 

The yielding wood ? And yet 't was loth 
To yield unto our happy march ; 

Doubtful it seemed, at times, if both 
Could pass its green, elastic arch. 

Yet there, at last, upon the marge 

We found ourselves, and there, behold. 

In hosts the lilies, white and large, 

Lay close, with hearts of downy gold ! 

Deep in the weedy waters spread 
The rootlets of the placid bloom : 

So sprung my love's flower, that was bred 
In deep, still waters of heart's-gloom. 

So sprung ; and so that morn was nursed 

To live in light, and on the pool 
Wherein its roots were deep immersed 

Burst into beauty broad and cool. 



48 THE LILY-POND, 

Few words were said ; a moment passed ; 

I know not how it came — that awe 
And ardor of a glance that cast 

Our love in universal law ! 

But all at once a bird sang loud, 

From dead twigs of the gleamy beech ; 

His notes dropped dewy, as out of a cloud, 
A blessing on our married speech. 

Ah, Love ! how fresh and rare, even now, 
That moment and that mood return 

Upon me, when the soft winds blow, 
And lilies toward the sunlight yearn ! 



PART SECOND. 



A 



FIRST GLANCE. 

BUDDING mouth and warm blue eyes ; 

A laughing face ; — and laughing hair, 
So ruddy does it rise 
From off that forehead fair : 



Frank fervor in whate'er she said, 
And a shy grace when she was still ; 

A bright, elastic tread ; 

Enthusiastic will ; 

These wrought the magic of a maid 
As sweet and sad as the sun in spring, 
Joyous, yet half-afraid 
Her joyousness to sing. 

What weighs the unworthiness of earth 
When beauty such as this finds birth ? 
Rare maid, to look on thee 
Gives all things harmony ! 



THE SUNSHINE OF THINE EYES.' 

The sunshine of thine eyes, 

(Oh still, celestial beam !) 
Whatever it touches it fills 

With the life of its lambent gleam. 

The sunshine of thine eyes, 

Oh let it fall on me ! 
Though I be but a mote of the air, 

I could turn to gold for thee ! 



"WHEN, LOOKING DEEPLY IN THY 
FACE." 



When, looking deeply in thy face, 

I catch the undergleam of grace 

That grows beneath the outward glance, 

Long looking, lost as in a trance 

Of long desires that fleet and meet 

Around me like the fresh and sweet 

White showers of rain which, vanishing, 

'Neath heaven's blue arches whirl, in spring j 

Suddenly then I seem to know 

Of some new fountain's overflow 

In grassy basins, with a sound 

That leads my fancy, past all bound, 

Into a region of retreat 

From this my life's bewildered heat. 

Oh if my soul might always draw 

From those deep fountains full of awe. 

The current of my days should rise 

Unto the level of thine eyes ! 



WITHIN A YEAR. 

I. 

Lips that are met in love's 
Devotion sweet, 
While parting lovers passionately greet, 
And earth through heaven's arc more swiftly 
moves — 
Oh, will they be less dear 
Within a year ? 

II. 

Eyes in whose shadow-spell 
Far off I read 
That which to lovers taking loving heed 
Dear women's eyes full soon and plainly tell — 

Oh, will you give such cheer 

This time a year ? 



in. 



Behold ! the dark year goes, 
Nor will reveal 



WITHIN A YEAR. 55 

Aught of its purpose, if for woe or weal, 
Swift as a stream that o'er the mill-weir flows : 

Mayhap the end draws near 

Within the year ! 

IV. 

Yet, darling, once more touch 
Those lips to mine. 
Set on my life that talisman divine ; 
Absence, new friends, I fear not overmuch — 

Even Death, should he appear 

Within the year ! 



THE SINGING WIRE. 

Hark to that faint, ethereal twang 
That from the bosom of the breeze 

Has caught its rise and fall : there rang 
JEolian harmonies ! 

I looked ; again the mournful chords, 
In random rhythm lightly flung 

From off the wire, came shaped in words ; 
And thus, meseemed, they sung : 

I, messenger of many fates, 

Strung to the tones of woe or weal, 

Fine nerve that thrills and palpitates 
With all men know or feel, — 

Oh, is it strange that I should wail ? 

Leave me my tearless, sad refrain. 
When in the pine-top wakes the gale 

That breathes of coming rain. 



THE SINGING WIRE. 57 

" There is a spirit in the post ; 

It, too, was once a murmuring tree ; 
Its sapless, sad, and withered ghost 
Echoes my melody. 

" Come close, and lay your listening ear 
Against the bare and branchless wood. 
Say, croons it not, so low and clear, 
As if it understood ? " 

I listened to the branchless pole 
That held aloft the singing wire ; 

I heard its muffled music roll. 
And stirred with svv-eet desire : 

" O wire more soft than seasoned lute. 
Hast thou no sunlit word for me ? 
Though long to me so coyly mute. 
Sure she may speak through thee ! " 

I listened ; but it was in vain. 

At first, the wind's old, wayward will 
Drew forth the tearless, sad refrain : 

That ceased, and all was still. 



58 THE SINGING WIRE. 

But suddenly some kindling shock 

Struck flashing through the wire : a bird, 

Poised on it, screamed and flew ; the flock 
Rose with him, wheeled, and whirred. 

Then to my soul there came this sense : 
" Her heart has answered unto thine ; 

She comes, to-night. Go, hie thee hence ! 
Meet her : no more repine ! " 

Mayhap the fancy was far-fetched ; 

And yet, mayhap, it hinted true. 
Ere moonrise, Love, a hand was stretched 

In mine, that gave me — you ! 

And so more dear to me has grown. 
Than rarest tones swept from the lyre. 

The minor-movement of that moan 
In yonder singing wire. 

Nor care I for the will of states. 

Or aught besides, that smites that string. 
Since then so close it knit our fates, 

What time the bird took wing ! 



MOODS OF LOVE. 



IN ABSENCE. 



My love for thee is like a winged seed 

Blown from the heart of thy rare beauty's flower, 
And deftly guided by some breezy power 

To fall and rest, where I should never heed, 

In deepest caves of memory. There, indeed, 
With virtue rife of many a sunny hour, — 
Ev'n making cold neglect and darkness dower 

Its roots with life, — swiftly it 'gan to breed, 

Till now wide-branching tendrils it outspreads 
Like circling arms, to prison its own j^rison. 

Fretting the walls with blooms by myriads, 

And blazoning in my brain full summer-season : 

Thy face, whose dearness presence had not taught. 

In absence multiplies, and fills all thought. 



60 MOODS OF LOVE. 



II. 

HEART'S FOUNTAIN. 

Her moods are like the fountain's, changing ever, 
That spouts aloft a sudden, watery dome, 
Only to fall again in shattering foam, 

Just where the wedded jets themselves dissever, 

And palpitating downward, downward quiver, 
Unfolded like a swift ethereal flower, 
That sheds white petals in a blinding shower, 

And straightway soars anew with blithe endeavor. 

The sun may kindle it with healthful fire ; 

Upon it falls the cloud-gray's leaden load ; 
At night the stars shall haunt the whirling spire : 

Yet these have but a transient garb bestowed. 
So her glad life, whate'er the hours impart. 
Plays still 'twixt heaven's cope and her own clear 
heart. 



MOODS OF LOVE. 6 1 



III. 

SOUTH-WIND SONG. 

Soft-throated South, breathing of summer's ease 
(Sweet breath, whereof the violet's life is made !) 
Through lips moist-warm, as thou hadst lately 
stayed 
'Mong rosebuds, wooing to the cheeks of these 
Loth blushes faint and maidenly — rich Breeze, 
Still doth thy honeyed blowing bring a shade 
Of sad foreboding. In thy hand is laid 
The power to build or blight rich fruit of trees, 
The deep, cool grass, and field of thick-combed 
grain. 

Even so my Love may bring me joy or woe, 
Both measureless, but either counted gain 

Since given by her. For pain and pleasure flow 
Like tides upon us of the self-same sea. 
Tears are the gems of joy and misery ! 



62 MOODS OF LOVE. 



YSf. 
THE LOVER'S YEAR 

Thou art my morning, twilight, noon, and eve, 
My Summer and my Winter, Spring and Fall ; 
For Nature left on thee a touch of all 

The moods that come to gladden or to grieve 

The heart of Time, with purpose to relieve 
From lagging sameness. So do these forestall 
In thee such o'erheaped sweetnesses as pall 

Too swiftly, and the taster tasteless leave. 

Scenes that I love to me always remain 
Beautiful, whether under summer's sun 

Beheld, or, storm-dark, stricken across with rain. 
So, through all humors, thou 'rt the same sweet 
one : 

Doubt not 1 love thee well in each, who see 

Thy constant change is changeful constancy. 



MOODS OF LOFE. 63 



NEW WORLDS. 

With my beloved I lingered late one night. 

At last the hour when I must leave her came : 

But, as I turned, a fear I could not name 
Possessed me that the long sweet evening might 
Prelude some sudden storm, whereby delight 

Should perish. What if Death, ere dawn, should 
claim 

One of us ? What, though living, not the same 
Each should appear to each in morning-light .'' 

Changed did I find her, truly, the next day : 
Ne'er could I see her as of old again. 

That strange mood seemed to draw a cloud away, 
And let her beauty pour through every vein 

Sunlight and life, part of me. Thus the lover 

With each new morn a new world may discover. 



64 MOODS OF LOVE. 



VI. 

WEDDING-NIGHT. 

At night, with shaded eyes, the summer moon 
In tender meditation downward glances 
At the dark earth, far-set in dim expanses, 

And, welcomer than blazoned gold of noon, 

Down through the air her steady lights are strewn. 
The breezy forests sigh in moonlit trances. 
And the full-hearted poet, waking, fancies 

The smiling hills will break in laughter soon. 

Oh thus, thou gentle Nature, dost thou shine 
On me to-night. My very limbs would melt. 

Like rugged earth beneath yon ray divine. 
Into faint semblance of what they have felt : 

Thine eye doth color me, O wife, O mine. 

With peace that in thy spirit long hath dwelt ! 



LOVE'S DEFEAT. 

A THOUSAND times I would have hoped, 
A thousand times protested ; 

But still, as through the night I groped, 
My torch from me was wrested, 
And wrested. 

How often with a succoring cup 

Unto the hurt I hasted ! 
The wounded died ere I came up ; 

My cup was still untasted, — 
Untasted. 

Of darkness, wounds, and harsh disdain 

Endured, I ne'er repented, 
'T is not of these I would complain : 
With these I were contented, — 
Contented. 
5 



66 LOVE'S DEFEAT. 

Here lies the misery, to feel 
No work of love completed ; 

In prayerless passion still to kneel, 
And mourn, and cry : " Defeated 
Defeated ! " 



MAY AND MARRIAGE. 

THE LOVER WHO THINKS. 

Dost thou remember, Love, those hours 

Shot o'er with random rainy showers, 

When the bold sun would woo coy May ? 

She smiled, then wept — and looked another way. 

We, learning from the sun and season. 

Together plotted joyous treason 

'Gainst maiden majesty, to give 

Each other troth, and henceforth wedded live. 

But love, ah, love we know is blind ! 
Not always what they seek they find 
When, groping through dim-lighted natures, 
Fond lovers look for old, ideal statures. 

What then ? Is all our purpose lost .'' 

The balance broken, since Fate tossed 

Uneven weights ? Oh well beware 

That thought, my sweet : 't were neither fit nor fair ! 



68 MAY AND MARRIAGE. 

Seek not for any grafted fruits 

From souls so wedded at the roots ; 

But whatsoe'er our fibres hold, 

Let that grow forth in mutual, ample mold ! 

No sap can circle without flaw 
Into the perfect sphere we saw 
Hanging before our happy eyes 
Amid the shade of marriage-mysteries ; 

But all that in the heart doth lurk 

Must toward the mystic shaping work : 

Sweet fruit and bitter both must fall 

When the boughs bend, at each year's autumn-call. 

Ah, dear defect ! that aye shall lift 

Us higher, not through craven shift 

Of fault on common frailty ; — nay. 

But twofold hope to help with generous stay ! 

I shall be nearer, understood : 

More prized art thou than perfect good. 

And since thou lov'st me, I shall grow 

Thy other self — thy Life, thy Joy, thy Woe ! 



THE FISHER OF THE CAPE. 

At morn his bark like a bird 

Slips lightly oceanward — 

Sail feathering smooth o'er the bay 

And beak that drinks the wild spray. 

In his eyes beams cheerily 

A light like the sun's on the sea, 

As he watches the waning strand, 

Where the foam, like a waving hand 

Of one who mutely would tell 

Her love, flutters faintly, " Farewell." 

But at night, when the winds arise 

And pipe to driving skies, 

And the moon peers, half afraid. 

Through the storm-cloud's ragged shade. 

He hears her voice in the blast 

That sighs about the mast, 

He sees her face in the clouds 

As he climbs the whistling shrouds ; 

And a power nerves his hand. 

Shall bring the bark to land. 



SAILOR'S SONG. 

The sea goes up ; the sky comes down. 
Oh, can you spy the ancient town, — 
The granite hills so hard and gray, 
That rib the land behind the bay ? 

O ye ho, boys ! Spread her wings ! 

Fair winds, boys : send her home ! 
O ye ho ! 

Three years ? Is it so long that we 

Have lived upon the lonely sea ? 

Oh, often I thought we 'd see the town. 

When the sea went up, and the sky came down. 

O ye ho, boys ! Spread her wings ! 

Fair winds, boys : send her home ! 
O ye ho ! 

Even the winter winds would rouse 
A memory of my father's house ; 



SAILOR'S SONG. Ji 

For round his windows and his door 
They made the same deep, mouthless roar. 

O ye ho, boys ! Spread her wings ! 

Fair winds, boys : send her home ! 
O ye ho ! 

And when the summer's breezes beat, 
Methought I saw the sunny street 
Where stood my Kate. Beneath her hand 
She gazed far out, far out from land. 

O ye ho, boys ! Spread her wings ! 

Fair winds, boys : send her home ! 
O ye ho ! 

Farthest away, I oftenest dreamed 
That 1 was with her. Then, it seemed 
A single stride the ocean wide 
Had bridged, and brought me to her side. 

O ye ho, boys ! Spread her wings ! 

Fair winds, boys : send her home. 
O ye ho ! 

But though so near we 're drawing, now, 
'T is farther off — I know not how. 



72 SAILOR'S SONG. 

We sail and sail : we see no home. 
Would we into the port were come ! 

O ye ho, boys ! Spread her wings ! 

Fair winds, boys : send her home ! 
O ye ho ! 

At night, the same stars o'er the mast : 
The mast sways round — however fast 
We fly — still sways and swings around 
One scanty circle's starry bound. 

O ye ho, boys ! Spread her wings ! 

Fair winds, boys : send her home ! 
O ye ho ! 

Ah, many a month those stars have shone. 
And many a golden morn has flown. 
Since that so solemn, happy morn. 
When, I away, my babe was born. 

O ye ho, boys ! Spread her wings ! 

Fair winds, boys : send her home ! 
O ye ho ! 

And, though so near we 're drawing, now, 
'T is farther off — I know not how — 



SAILOR'S SONG. 73 

I would not aught amiss had come 
To babe or mother there, at home ! 

O ye ho, boys ! Spread her wings ! 

Fair winds, boys : send her home ! 
O ye ho ! 

'T is but a seeming : swiftly rush 
The seas, beneath. I hear the crush 
Of foamy ridges 'gainst the prow. 
Longing outspeeds the breeze, I know. 

O ye ho, boys ! Spread her wings ! 

Fair winds, boys : send her home ! 
O ye ho ! 

Patience, my mates ! Though not this eve 
We cast our anchor, yet believe. 
If but the wind holds, short the run : 
We '11 sail in with to-morrow's sun. 

O ye ho, boys ! Spread her wings ! 

Fair wunds, boys : send her home ! 
O ye ho ! 



JESSAMINE. 

Here stands the great tree still, with broad, bent 

head. 
And wide arms grown aweary, yet outspread 
With their old blessing. But wan memory weaves 
Strange garlands now amongst the darkening 
leaves. 
And the moon hangs low in the elm. 

Beneath these glimmering arches Jessamine 

Walked with her lover long ago, and in 

This moon-made shade he questioned ; and she 

spoke : 
Then on them both love's rarer radiance broke. 
Ajid the 7noon hangs low in the eh7i. 

Sweet Jessamine we called her ; for she shone 
Like blossoms that in sun and shade have grown, 
Gathering from each alike a perfect white. 
Whose rich bloom breaks opaque through darkest 
night. 
And the moon hangs loiu in the ehn. 



JESSAMINE. 75 

And for this sweetness Walt, her lover, sought 
To win her ; wooed her here, his heart full-fraught 
With fragrance of her being, and gained his plea. 
So " We will wed," they said, '• beneath this tree." 
And the 7110011 hangs low in the elm. 

Was it unfaith, or faith more full to her, 
Made him, for fame and fortune longing, spur 
Into the world ? Far from his home he sailed : 
And life paused ; while she watched joy vanish, 
vailed. 
And the moon hangs low in the elm. 

Oh, better at the elm tree's sun-browned feet 
If he had been content to let life fleet 
Its wonted way ! — there rearing his small house ; 
Mowing and milking, lord of corn and cows ! 
And the moon hangs low in the elm. 

For as against a snarling sea one steers, 
Ever he battled with the beetling years ; 
And ever Jessamine must watch and pine, 
Her vision bounded by the bleak sea-line. 
And the moon hangs low in the elm. 



76 JESSAMINE. 

At last she heard no more. The neighbors said 
That Walt had married, faithless, or was dead. 
Yet naught her trust could move; the tryst she kept 
Each night still, 'neath this tree, before she slept. 
And the moon hangs low in the ehn. 

So, circling years went by ; and in her face 
Slow melancholy wrought a tempered grace 
Of early joy with sorrow's rich alloy — * 
Refined, rare, no doom should e'er destroy. 
And the 7noon hangs low in the elm. 

Sometimes at twilight, when sweet Jessamine, 
Slow-footed, weary-eyed, passed by to win 
The elm, we smiled for pity of her, and mused 
On love that so could live with love refused. 
And the moon hangs low in the elm. 

Nor none could hope for her. But she had grown 
Too high in love for hope, and bloomed alone, 
Aloft in pure sincerity secure ; 
For fortune's failures, in her faith too sure. 
And the moon hangs low in the elm. 



JESSAMINE. 77 

Oh, well for Walt, if he had known her soul ! 
Discouraged on disaster's changeful shoal 
Wrecking, he rested ; starved on selfish pride 
Long years ; nor would obey love's homeward tide. 
And the moon hangs low in the elm. 

But, bitterly repenting of his sin, 

Oh, bitterly he learned to look within 

Sweet Jessamine's clear depth — when the past, 

dead. 
Mocked him, and wild, waste years forever fled ! 
And the ??ioon hajigs low in the elm. 

Late, late, oh, late beneath the tree stood two ! 
In awe and anguish wondering : " Is it true ? " 
Two that were each most like to some wan wraith : 
Yet each on each looked with a living faith. 
And the moon hangs low in the elm. 

Even to the tree-top sang the wedding-bell ; 
Even to the tree-top tolled the passing knell. 
Beneath it Walt and Jessamine were wed ; 
Beneath it many a year she lieth dead ! 
A7id the moon hangs low in the elm. 



y8 JESSAMINE. 

Here stands the great tree still. But age has crept 
Through every coil, while Walt each night has kept 
The tryst alone. Hark ! with what windy might 
The boughs chant o'er her grave their burial-rite ! 
And the moon hangs low m the elm. 



GRIEF'S HERO. 

A YOUTH unto herself Grief took, 
Whom ever3^thing of joy forsook, 
And men passed with denying head. 
Saying : " 'T were better he were dead." 

Grief took him, and with master-touch 
Molded his being. I marveled much 
To see her magic with the clay, 
So much she gave — and took away. 
Daily she wrought, and her design 
Grew daily clearer and more fine. 
To make the beauty of his shape 
Serve for the spirit's free escape. 
With liquid fire she filled his eyes. 
She graced his lips with swift surmise 
Of sympathy for others' woe, 
And made his every fibre flow 
In fairer curves. On brow and chin 
And tinted cheek, drawn clean and thin, 



80 GR/EFS HERO. 

She sculptured records rich, great Grief ! 
She made him loving, made him lief. 



I marveled ; for, where others saw 

A failing frame with many a flaw, 

Meseemed a figure I beheld 

Fairer than anything of eld 

Fashioned from sunny marble. Here 

Nature was artist with no peer. 

No chisel's purpose could have caught 

These lines, nor brush their secret wrought. 

Not so the world weighed, busily 

Pursuing drossy industry ; 

But, saturated with success, 

Well-guarded by a soft excess 

Of bodily ease, gave little heed 

To him that held not by their creed, 

Save o'er the beauteous youth to moan : 

" A pity that he is not grown 
To our good stature and heavier weight, 
To bear his share of our full freight." 
Meanwhile, thus to himself he spoke : 

" Oh, noble is the knotted oak. 
And sweet the gush of sylvan streams, 
And good the great sun's gladding beams. 



GRIEFS HERO. 8 1 

The blush of life upon the field, 

The silent might that mountains wield. 

Still more I love to mix with men, 

Meeting the kindly human ken ; 

To feel the force of faithful friends — 

The thirst for smiles that never ends. 



" Yet precious more than all of these 
I hold great Sorrow's mysteries. 
Whereby Gehenna's sultry gale 
Is made to lift the golden veil 
'Twixt heaven's starry-sphered light 
Of truth and our dim, sun-blent sight. 
Joy comes to ripen ; but 't is Grief 
That garners in the grainy sheaf. 
Time was I feared to know or feel 
The spur of aught but gilded weal ; 
To bear aloft the victor, Fame, 
Would ev'n have champed a stately shame 
Of bit and bridle. But my fears 
Fell off in the pure bath of tears. 
And now with sinews fresh and strong 
I stride, to summon with a song 
The deep, invigorating truth 
That makes me younger than my youth. 
6 



82 GJ^/EF'S NERO. 

" O Sorrow, deathless thy delight ! 
Deathless it were but for our slight 
Endurance ! Truth like thine, too rare, 
We dare but take in scantiest share." 

He died : the creatures of his kind 
Fared on. Not one had known his mind. 

But the unnamed yearnings of the air, 
The eternal sky's wide-searching stare, 
The undertone of brawling floods, 
And the old moaning of the woods 
Grew full of memory. 

The sun 
Many a brave heart has shone upon 
Since then, of men who walked abroad 
For joy and gladness praising God. 
But widowed Grief lives on alone : 
She hath not chosen, of them, one. 



A FACE IN THE STREET. 

Poor, withered face, that yet was once so fair, 
Grown ashen-old in the wild fires of lust — 
Thy star-like beauty, dimm'd with earthly dust, 
Yet breathing of a purer native air ; — 

They who whilom, cursed vultures, sought a share 
Of thy dead womanhood, their greed unjust 
Have satisfied, have stripped and left thee bare. 
Still, like a leaf warped by the autumn gust, 

And driving to the end, thou wrapp'st in flame 
And perfume all thy hollow-eyed decay. 

Feigning on those gray cheeks the blush that Shame 
Took with her when she fled long since away. 
Ah God ! rain fire upon this foul-souled city 
That gives such death, and spares its men, — 
for pity ! 



THE BATHER. 

Standing here alone. 

Let me pause awhile, 

Drinking in the Hght 

Ere, with pkmge of white limbs prone, 

I raise the sparkling flight 

Of foam-flakes volatile. 

Now, in natural guise, 

I woo the deathless breeze, 

Through me rushing fleet 

The joy of life, in swift surprise : 

I grow with growing wheat, 

And burgeon with the trees, 

Lo ! I fetter Time, 

So he cannot run ; 

And in Eden again — 

Flash of memory sublime ! — 

Dwell naked, without stain, 

Beneath the dazed sun. 



THE BATHER. 85 

All yields brotherhood ; 
Each least thing that lives, 
Wrought of primal spores, 
Deepens this wild sense of good 
That, on tliese shaggy shores, 
Return to nature p:ives. 



Oh, that some solitude 
Were ours, in woodlands deep. 
Where, with lucent eyes, 
Living lithe and limber-thewed, 
Our life's shape might arise 
Like mountains fresh from sleep 



To sounds of water falling. 

Hosts of delicate dreams 

Should lull us and allure 

With a dim, enchanted calling, 

Blameless to live and pure 

Like these sweet springs and streams. 

But in a wilderness 
Alone may such life be ? 
Why of all things framed. 
In my human form confessed 



86 THE BATHER. 

Should I be ashamed, 
And blush for honesty ? 

Rounded, strengthy limbs 
That knit me to my kind — 
Your glory turns to grief ! 
Shall I for my soul sing hymns, 
Yet for my body find 
No clear, divine belief ? 

Let me rather die, 

Than by faith uphold 

Dogmas weak that dare 

The form that once Christ wore deny 

Afraid with him to share 

A purity twofold ; 

Yet, while sin remains 

On this saddened earth, . 

Humbly walk my ways ! 

For my garments are as chains ; 

And I fear to praise 

My frame with careless mirth. 



THE BATHER. 87 

Joy and penance go 
Hand in hand, I see ! 
Would I could live so well, 
Soul of me should never know 
When my coverings fell, 
Nor feel this nudity ! 



HELEN AT THE LOOM. 

Helen, in her silent room, 
Weaves upon the upright loom. 
Weaves a mantle rich and dark, 
Purpled over-deep. But mark 
How she scatters o'er the wool 
Woven shapes, till it is full 
Of men that struggle close, complex ; 
Short-clipp'd steeds with wrinkled necks 
Arching high ; spear, shield, and all 
The panoply that doth recall 
Mighty war, such war as e'en 
For Helen's sake is waged, I ween. 
Purple is the groundwork : good ! 
All the field is stained with blood. 
Blood poured out for Helen's sake ; 
(Thread, run on ; and, shuttle, shake !) 
But the shapes of men that pass 
Are as ghosts within a glass. 
Woven with whiteness of the swan. 
Pale, sad memories, gleaming wan 



HELEN AT THE LOOM. 89 

From the garment's purple fold 
Where Troy's tale is twined and told. 
Well may Helen, as with tender 
Touch of rosy fingers slender 
She doth knit the story in 
Of Troy's sorrow and her sin, 
Feel sharp filaments of pain 
Reeled off with the well-spun skein. 
And faint blood-stains on her hands 
From the shifting sanguine strands. 
Gently, sweetly she doth sorrow : 
What has been must be to-morrow ; 
Meekly to her fate she bows. 
Heavenly beauties still will rouse 
Strife and savagery in men : 
Shall the lucid heavens, then, 
Lose their high serenity, 
Sorrowing over what must be ? 
If she taketh to her shame, 
Lo, they give her not the blame, — 
Priam's wisest counselors. 
Aged men, not loving wars : 
When she goes forth, clad in white, 
Day-cloud touched by first moonlight. 
With her fair hair, amber-hued 
As vapor by the moon imbued 



90 HELEN AT THE LOOM. 

With burning brown, that round her clings, 

See, she sudden silence brings 

On the gloomy whisperers 

Who would make the wrong all hers. 

So, Helen, in thy silent room. 

Labor at the storied loom ; 

(Thread, run- on ; and, shuttle, shake !) 

Let thy aching sorrow make 

Something strangely beautiful 

Of this fabric, since the wool 

Comes so tinted from the Fates, 

Dyed with loves, hopes, fears, and hates. 

Thou shalt work with subtle force 

All thy deep shade of remorse 

In the texture of the weft, 

That no stain on thee be left ; — 

Ay, false queen, shalt fashion grief. 

Grief and wrong, to soft relief. 

Speed the garme.nt ! It may chance. 

Long hereafter, meet the glance 

Of CEnone ; when her lord, 

Now thy Paris, shall go t'ward 

Ida, at his last sad end. 

Seeking her, his early friend, 



HELEN AT THE LOOM. 91 

Who alone can cure his ill 

Of all who love him, if she will. 

It were fitting she should see 

In that hour thine artistry, 

And her husband's speechless corse 

In the garment of remorse ! 

But take heed that in thy work 

Naught unbeautiful may lurk. 

Ah, how little signifies 

Unto thee what fortunes rise, 

What others fall ! Thou still shalt rule, 

Still shalt work the colored crewl. 

Though thy yearning woman's eyes 

Burn with glorious agonies, 

Pitying the waste and woe, 

And the heroes falling low 

In the war around thee, here. 

Yet that exquisitest tear 

'Twixt thy lids shall dearer be 

Than life, to friend or enemy. 

There are people on the earth 
Doomed with doom of too great worth. 
Look on Helen not with hate, 
Therefore, but compassionate. 



92 



HELEN AT THE LOOM 

If she suffer not too much, 

Seldom does she feel the touch 

Of that fresh, auroral joy 

Lighter spirits may decoy 

To their pure and sunny lives. 

Heavy honey 't is, she hives. 

To her sweet but burdened soul 

All that here she doth control — 

What of bitter memories. 

What of coming fate's surmise, 

Paris' passion, distant din 

Of the war now drifting in 

To her quiet — idle seems ; 

Idle as the lazy gleams 

Of some stilly water's reach. 

Seen from where broad vine-leaves pleach 

A heavy arch, and, looking through, 

Far away the doubtful blue 

Glimmers, on a drowsy day, 

Crowded with the sun's rich gray, 

As she stands within her room. 

Weaving, weaving at the loom. 



''O WHOLESOME DEATH." 

O WHOLESOME Death, thy sombre funeral-car 
Looms ever dimly on the lengthening way 
Of life ; while, lengthening still, in sad array, 

My deeds in long procession go, that are 

As mourners of the man they helped to mar. 
I see it all in dreams, such as waylay 
The wandering fancy when the solid day 

Has fallen in smoldering ruins, and night's star, 

Aloft there, with its steady point of light 

Mastering the eye, has wrapped the brain in 
sleep. 

Ah, when I die, and planets take their flight 
Above my grave, still let my spirit keep 

Sometimes its vigil of divine remorse, 

'Midst pity, praise, or blame heaped o'er my corse I 



BURIAL-SONG FOR SUMNER. 

Now the last wreath of snow 
That melts, in mist exhales 
White aspiration, and our deep-voiced gales 
In chorus chant the measured march of spring. 
Whom griefs of life and death 
Are burdening ! 
Slow, slow — 
With half-held breath — 
Tread slow, O mourners, that all men may know 
What hero here lies low ! 

O music, sweep 
From some deep cave, and bear 
To us that gasp in this so meagre air 

Sweet ministerings 
And consolations of contorted sound. 

With agonies profound 
Of nobly warring and enduring chords 
That lie, close-bound. 



BURIAL-SONG FOR SUMNER. 95 

Unstirred as yet 'neath thy wide, wakening wings ; 

So that our hearts break not in broken words. 
O music, that hast power 
This darkness to devour 

In vivid light ; that from the dusk of grief 

Canst cause to grow divergent flower and leaf, 

And from death's darkest roots 

Bring forth the fairest fruits ; — 

Come thou, to quicken this hour 

Of loss, and keep 

Thy spell on all, that none may dare to weep ! 

For he whom now we mourn. 

As if from giants born. 
Was strong in limb and strong in brain, 
And nobly with a giant scorn 

Withstood the direst pain 

That healing science knows. 

When, by the dastard blows 

Of his brute enemy 
Laid low, he sought to rise again 

Through help of knife and fire, — 

The awful enginery 

Wherewith men dare aspire 
To wrest from Death his victims. Yea, 



96 BURIAL-SONG FOR SUMNER. 

Though he who healed him shrank and throbbed 

With horror of the wound, 

Brave Sumner gave no sound, 

Nor flinched, nor sobbed, 

But as though within the man 

Instant premonition ran 
Of his high fate, 
Imperishable, sculptured state 

Enthroned in death to hold. 

He stood, a statued form 

Of veiled and voiceless storm. 

Inwardly quivering 

Like the swift-smitten string 

Of unheard music, yet 

As massively and firmly set 
As if he had been marble or v/rought gold ! 

Built in so brave a shape. 
How could he hope escape 
The blundering people's wrath ? 
Who, seeing him strong, 
Supposed it right to cast on him their wrong, 
Since he could bear it all ! 
Lo, now, the sombre pall 
Sweeps their dull errors from the path. 
And leaves it free 



BURIAL-SONG FOR SUMNER. 97 

For him, whose hushed heart no reproaches hath, 

Unto his grave to fare, 

In shrouded majesty ! 

His triumph fills the air : 
Behold, the streets are bordered with vain breath 
Of those who reverent watch the train of death ; 

But he has done with breathing ! 

Wise Death, still choosing near and far. 
Thou couldst not strike a higher star 
From out our heaven, and yet its light 
In falling glorifies the night ! 

Leader in life, his lips, though dumb, 
Still rule us by their restfulness, their smile 
Of far-off meanings ; and the people come 
In tributary hosts for many a mile, 

Drawn by an eloquence 

More solemn and intense 

Than that wherewith he shook 

The Senate, while his look 
Of sober lightning cleft the knotty growth 
Of error, that within the riven root 
Uplifted, lit with peace, truth's buds might shoot. 
And blow sweet breath o'er all, however loth ! 



98 BURIAL-SONG FOR SUMNER. 

Unspeaking, though his eyes forget 

The hght that Late forsook 

Their chambers, there doth rise 
Mysteriously yet 

A radiance thence that glows 
On brows of them, the great and wise, 
Poets and men of prophecies. 
Who, with looks of strange repose, 
Calm, exalted, here have met 
Him to follow to his grave. 
Well they know he 's crossed their bound, 
Yet, with baffled longing brave. 
Seek with him the depths to sound 
That gulf our lonely life around. 
Oh, on these mortal faces frail 

What immortality 

Falls from the death-light pale ! 

Ev'n thus the path unto thy tomb, 
Sumner, all our brave and good 
Still shall pace through time to come, 
For in distant Auburn wood 
Seeing the glimmer of thy stone. 
They a shaft shall deem it, thrown 
From a dawn beyond the deep, 



BURIAL-SONG FOR SUMNER. 99 

And so haste with thee to keep 
Angelic brotherhood ! 
O herald, gone before, 
For these throw wide the door, 
Make room, make room ! 

Now, music, cease, 
And bitter brazen trumpets hold your peace ! 
Now, while the dumb, white air 
Draws from our still despair 
A purer prayer. 
Then must the sod 
Fulfill its humble share. 
Meek-folded o'er his breast. 
Here where he lies amongst the waiting trees : 
They shall break bud when warm winds from the 

west 
And southern breezes come to touch the place 
Made precious by this grace 
Of memory dear to God. 

We leave him where the granite Lion lies 
And gazes toward the East, with woman's eyes 
That read the riddle of the undying sun, 
Bearing within her breast the stony germ 



103 BURIAL-SONG FOR SUMNER. 

Of continents, but — lasting no less firm — 
'['he memory of those marvels done, 
The battles fought, the words that wrought 
To free a race, and chasten one. 
We leave him where the river slowly winds, 

A broken chain ; 
The river that so late its hero finds, 

Without a stain. 
Whose name so long expectantly it bore ; 

And, echoing now a people's thought, 
The Charles shall murmur by this reedy shore 
His fame forevermore. 



ARISE, AMERICAN! 

The soul of a nation awaking, — 
High visions of daybreak I saw. 

And the stir of a state, the forsaking 
Of sin, and the worship of law. 

O pine-tree, shout ! And hoarser 

Rush, river, unto the sea, 
Foam-fettered and sun-flushed, a courser 

That feels the prairie, free ! 

Our birth-star beckons to trial 
All faith of the far-fled years. 

Ere scorn was our share, and denial. 
Or laughter for patriot's tears. 

And lo. Faith comes forth the finer 
From trampled thickets of fire, 

And the orient opens diviner 

Before her ; the heaven lifts higher. 



102 ARISE, AMERICAN! 

O deep, sweet eyes, and severer 

Than steel ! he knoweth who comes, 

Thy hero : bend thine eyes nearer ! 
Now wilder than battle-drums 

Thy glance in his blood is stirring ! 

His heart is alive like the main 
When the roweled winds are spurring, 

And the broad tides shoreward strain. 

O hero, art thou among us ? 

O helper, hidest thou still ? 
Why hath he no anthem sung us. 

Why waiteth, nor worketh our will ? 

For still a smirk or a favor 

Can hide the face of the false ; 

And the old-time Faith seeks braver 
Upholders, and sacreder walls. 

Yea, cunning is Christian evil, 
And subtle the conscience' snare ; 

But virtue's volcanic upheaval 
Shall cast fine device to the air ! 



ARISE, AMERICAN! 103 

Too long has the land's soul slumbered, 
And triumph bred dangerous ease, — 

Our victories all unnumbered, 

Our feet on the down-bowed seas. 

Come, then, simple and stalwart 

Life of the earlier days ! 
Come ! Far better than all were it — 

Our precepts, our prayers, and our lays — 

That the heart of the people should tremble 
Accord to some mighty one's voice. 

The helpless atoms assemble 
In music, their valor to poise. 

Come to us, mountain-dweller, 

Leader, wherever thou art, 
Skilled from thy cradle, a queller 

Of serpents, and sound to the heart ! 

Modest, and mighty, and tender, 

Man of an iron mold. 
Learned .or unlearned, our defender, 

American-souled ! 



THE SILENT TIDE. 

A TANGLED Orchard round the farm-house spreads, 
Wherein it stands home-hke, but desolate, 
'Midst crowded and uneven-statured sheds, 
Alike by rain and sunshine sadly stained. 
A quiet country-road before the door 
Runs, gathering close its ruts to scale the hill — 
A sudden bluff on the New Hampshire coast, 
That rises rough against the sea, and hangs 
Crested above the bowlder-sprinkled beach. 
And on the road white houses small are strung 
Like threaded beads, with intervals. The church 
Tops the rough hill ; then comes the wheelwright's 
shop. 

From orchard, church, and shop you hear the sea, 
And from the farm-house windows see it strike 
Sharp gleams through slender arching apple-boughs. 

Sea-like, too, echoing round me here there rolls 



THE SILENT TIDE. 105 

A surging sorrow ; and even so there breaks 

A smitten light of woe upon me, now, 

Seeing this place, and telling o'er again 

The tale of those who dwelt here once. Long since 

It was, and they, were two — two brothers, bound 

By early orphanage and solitude 

The closer, cleaving strongly each to each, 

Till love, that held them many years in gage, 

Itself swept them asunder. I have heard 

The story from old Deacon Snow, their friend. 

He who was boy and man with them. A boy ! 

What, he ? How strange it seems ! who now is stiff 

And warped with life's fierce heat and cold : his 

brows 
Are hoary white, and on his head the hairs 
Stand sparse as wheat-stalks on the bare field's 

edge ! 

Reuben and Jerry they were named ; but two 
Of common blood and nurture scarce were found 
More sharply different. For the first was bold, 
Breeze-like and bold to come or go ; not rash, 
But shrewdly generous, popular, and boon : 
And Jerry, dark and sad-faced. Whether least 
He loved himself or neighbor none could tell, 



I06 THE SILENT TIDE. 

So cold he seemed in wonted sympathy. 

Yet he would ponder an hour at a time 

Upon a bird found dead ; and much he loved 

To brood i' th' shade of yon wind-wavered pines. 

Often at night, too, he would wander forth, 

Lured by the hollow rumbling of the sea 

In moonlight breaking, there to learn wild things, 

Such as these dreamers pluck out of the dusk 

While other men lie sleeping. But a star, 

Rose on his sight, at last, with power to rule 

Majestically mild that deep-domed sky. 

High as youth's hopes, that stood above his soul ; 

And, ruling, led him day ward. That was Grace, 

I mean Grace Brierly, daughter of the squire, 

Rivaling the wheelwright Hungerford's shy Ruth 

For beauty. Therefore, in the sunny field. 

Mowing the clover-purpled grass, or, waked 

In keen December dawns, — while creeping light 

And winter-tides beneath the pallid stars 

Stole o'er the marsh together, — a thought of her 

Would turn him cool or warm, like the south 

breeze. 
And make him blithe or bitter. Alas for him ! 
Eagerly storing golden thoughts of her, 
He locked a phantom treasure in his breast. 



THE SILENT TIDE. \oj 

He sought to chain the breezes, and to lift 

A perfume as a pearl before his eyes — 

Intangible delight ! A time drew on 

When from these twilight musings on his hopes 

He woke, and found the morning of his love 

Blasted, and all its rays shorn suddenly. 

For Reuben, too, had turned his eye on Grace, 

And she with favoring face the suit had met. 

Known in the village ; this dream-fettered youth 

Perceiving not what passed, until too late. 

One holiday the young folks all had gone 
Strawberrying, with the village Sabbath-school ; 
Reuben and Grace and Jerry, Ruth, Rob Snow, 
And all their friends, youth-mates that buoyantly 
Bore out 'gainst Time's armadas, like a fleet 
Of fair ships, sunlit, braced by buffeting winds, 
Indomitably brave ; but, soon or late, 
Battle and hurricane or whirl them deep 
Below to death, or send them homeward, seared 
By shot and storm : so went they forth, that day. 

Two wagons full of rosy children rolled 
Along the rutty track, 'twixt swamp and slope, 
Through deep, green-glimmering woods, and out at 
last 



I08 THE SILENT TIDE. 

On grassy table-land, warm with the sun 

And yielding tributary odors wild 

Of strawberry, late June-rose, juniper, 

Where sea and land breeze mingled. There a 

brook 
Through a bare hollow flashing, spurted, purled, 
And shot away, yet stayed — a light and grace 
Unconscious and unceasing. And thick pines, 
Hard by, drew darkly far away their dim 
And sheltering, cool arcades. So all dismount, 
And fields and forest gladden with their shout ; 
Ball, swing, and see-saw sending the light hearts 
Of the children high o'er earth and everything. 
While some staid, kindly women draw and spread 
In pine-shade the long whiteness of a cloth, 
The rest, a busy legion, o'er the grass 
Kneeling, must rifle the meadow of its fruit. 

O laughing Fate ! O treachery of truth 

To royal hopes youth bows before ! That day, 

Ev'n there where life in such glad measure beat 

Its round, with winds and waters, tunefully, 

And birds made music in the matted wood, 

The shaft of death reached Jerry's heart : he saw 

The sweet conspiracy of those two lives. 



^^ 



THE SILENT TIDE. 109 

In looks and gestures read his doom, and heard 
Their laughter ring to the grave all mirth of his. 

So Reuben's life in full leaf stood, its fruit 
Hidden in a green expectancy ; but all 
His days were rounded with ripe consciousness : 
While Jerry felt the winter's whitening blight, 
As when that frosty fern-work and those palms 
Of visionary leaf, and trailing vines, 
Quaint-chased by night-winds on the pane, melt 

off. 
And naked earth, stone-stiff, with bristling trees, 
Stares in the winter sunlight coldly through. 
But yet he rose, and clothed himself amain 
With misery, and once more put on life 
As a stained garment. Highly he resolved 
To make his deedless days henceforward strike 
Pure harmony — a psalm of silences. 

But on the Sunday, coming from the church, 
He saw those happy, plighted lovers walk 
Before proud Grace's father, and of friends 
Heard comment and congratulation given. 
Then with Rob Snow he hurried to the beach. 
To a rough heap of stones they two had reared 



no THE SILENT TIDE. 

In boyhood. There the two held sad debate 
Of Ufe's swift losses, Bob inspiriting still, 
Jerry rejecting hope, ev'n though his friend, 
Self-wounding (for he loved Ruth Hungerford), 
Told how the wheelwright's daughter longed for 

him, 
And yet might make him glad, though Grace was 

lost. 

The season deepened, and in Jerry's heart 
Ripened a thought charged with grave consequence. 
His grief he would have stifled at its birth. 
Sad child of frustrate longing! But anon — 
Knowledge of Ruth's affection being revealed, 
Which, if he stayed to let it feed on him, 
Vine-like might wreathe and wind about his life, 
Lifting all shade and sweetness out of reach 
Of Robert, so long his friend — honor, and hopes 
He would not name, kindled a torch for war 
Of various impulse in him. Reuben wedded ; 
Yet Jerry lingered. Then, swift whisperings 
Along reverberant walls of gossips' ears 
Hummed loud and louder a love for Ruth. Grace. 

too. 
Involved him in a web of soft surmise 



'J HE SILENT TIDE. 1 1 I 

With Ruth ; and Reuben questioned him thereof. 

But a white, sudden anger struck Hke a bolt 

O'er Jerry's face, that blackened under it : 

He strode away, and left his brother dazed, 

Witli red rush of offended self-conceit 

Staining his forehead to the hair. This flash 

Of anger — first since boyhood's wholesome 

strifes — 
On Jerry's path gleamed lurid ; by its light 
He shaped a life's course out. 

There came a storm 
One night. He bade farewell to Ruth ; and when 
Above the seas the bare-browed dawn arose, 
While the last laggard drops ran off the eaves, 
He dressed, but took some customary garb 
On his arm ; stole swiftly to the sands ; and there 
Cast down his garments by the ancient heap 
Of stones. At first brief pause he made, and 

thought : 
" And thus I play, to win perchance a tear 
From her whom, first, to save the smallest care, 
I thought I could have died ! " But then at once 
Within the sweep of swirling water-planes 
That from the great waves circled up and slid 



112 THE SILENT TIDE. 

Instantly back, passing far down the shore, 
Southward he made his way. Next day he shipped 
Upon a whaler outward bound. She spread 
Her mighty wings, and bore him far away — 
So far. Death seemed across her wake to stalk, 
Withering her swift shape from the empty air, 
Until her memory grew a faded dream. 

Ah, what a desolate brightness that young day 
Flung o'er the impassive strand and dull green 

marsh 
And green-arched orchard, ere it struck the farm ! 
Storm-strengthened, clear, and cool the morning 

rose 
To gaze down on that frighted home, where dawned 
Pale Ruth's discovery of her loss, who late, 
Guessing some ill in Jerry's last-night words 
Of vague farewell, woke now to certainty 
Of strange disaster. So, when Reuben and Rob, 
Hither and thither searching, with locked lips 
And eyes grown suddenly cold in eager dread, 
On those still sand^ beside the untamed sea. 
Came to the garments Jerry had thrown there, dumb 
They stood, and knew he 'd perished. If by 

chance 



THE SILENT TIDE. I 1 3 

Borne out with undertow and rolled beneath 
The gaping surge, or rushing on his death 
Free-willed, they would not guess ; but straight they 

set 
Themselves to watch the changes of the sea — 
The watchful sea that would not be betrayed, 
The surly flood that echoed their suspense 
With hollow-sounding horror. Thus three tides 
Hurled on the beach their empty spray, and brought 
N ^r doubt-dispelling death, nor new-born hope. 
But with the fourth slow turn at length there came 
A naked, drifting body impelled to shore, 
An unknown sailor by the late storm swept 
Out of the rigging of some laboring ship. 
And him, disfigured by the water's wear, 
The watching friends supposed their dead ; and so, 
Mourning, took up this outcast of the deep. 
And buried him, with church-rite and with pall 
Trailing, and train of sad-eyed mourners, there 
In the old orchard-lot by Reuben's door. 

Observed among the mourners walked slight Ruth. 
Her grief had dropped a veil of finer light 
Around her, hedging her with sanctity 
Peculiar ; all stood shy about her save 
8 



114 ^^-^ SILENT TIDE: 

Rob Snow, he venturing from time to time 

Some small, uncertain act of kindliness. 

Long seemed she vowed from joy, but when the 

birds 
Began to mate, and quiet violets blow 
Along the brook-side, lo ! she smiled again ; 
Again the wind-flower color in her cheeks 
Blanch'd in a breath, and bloomed once more j then 

stayed ; 
Till, like the breeze that rumors ripening buds, 
A delicate sense crept through the air that soon 
These two would scale the church-crowned hill, and 

wed. 

The seasons faced the world, and fled, and came. 

In summer nights, the soft roll of the sea 

Was shattered, resonant, beneath a moon 

That, silent, seemed to hearken. And every hour 

In autumn, night or day, large apples fell 

Without rebound to earth, upon the sod 

There mounded greenly by the large slate slab 

In the old orchard-lot near Reuben's door. 

But there were changes : after some long years 

Reuben and Grace beheld a brave young boy 

Bearing their double life abroad in one — 



THE SILENT TIDE. I I 5 

Beginning new the world, and bringing hopes 
That in their path fell flower-like. Not at ease 
They dwelt, though ; for a slow discordancy 
Of temper — weak-willed waste of life in bursts 
Of petulance — had marred their happiness. 
And so the boy, young Reuben, as he grew, 
Was chafed and vexed by this ill-fitting mode 
Of life forced on him, and rebelled. Too oft 
Brooding alone, he shaped loose schemes of flight 
Into the joyous outer world, to break 
From the unwholesome wranglings of his home. 
Then once, when at some slight demur he made. 
Dispute ensued between the man and wife, 
He burst forth, goaded, " Some day I will leave — 
Leave you forever ! " And his father stared. 
Lifted and clenched his hand, but let it unloose, 
Nerveless. The blow, unstruck, yet quivered 

through 
The boy's whole body. 

Waiting for the night, 
Reuben made ready, lifted latch, went forth ; 
Then, with his little bundle in his hand. 
Took the bleak road that led him to the world. 



Il6 THE SILENT TIDE. 

When Jerry eighteen years had sailed, had bared 
His hurt soul to the pitiless sun and drunk 
The rainy brew of storms on all seas, tired 
Of wreck and fever and renewed mischance 
That would not end in death, a longing stirred 
Within him to revisit that gray coast 
Where he was born. He landed at the port 
Whence first he sailed ; and, as in fervid youth, 
Set forth upon the highway, to walk home. 
Some hoarding he had made, wherewith to enrich 
His brother's brood for spendthrift purposes ; 
And as he walked he wondered how they looked, 
How tall they were, how many there might be. 
At noon he set himself beside the way, 
Under a clump of willows sprouting dense 
O'er the weed-woven margin of a brook ; 
While in the fine green branches overhead 
Song-sparrows lightly perched, for whom he threw 
From his scant bread some crumbs, remembering 

well 
Old days when he had played with birds like 

these — 
The same, perhaps, or grandfathers of theirs, 
Or earlier still progenitors : whereat 
They chirped and chattered louder than before. 



THE SILENT TIDE. WJ 

But, as he sat, a boy came clown the road. 
Stirring the noontide dust with laggard feet. 
Young Reuben 't was, who seaward made his way. 
And Jerry hailed him, carelessly, his mood 
Moving to salutation, and the boy. 
From under his torn hat-brim looking, answered. 
Then, seeing that he eyed his scrap of bread, 
The sailor bade him come and share it. So 
They fell to talk ; and Jerry, with a rough. 
Quick-touching kindness, the boy's heart so moved 
That unto him he all his wrong confessed. 
Gravely the sailor looked at him, and told 
His own tale of mad flight and wandering ; how, 
Wasted he had come back, his life a husk 
Of withered seeds, a raveled purse, though once 
With golden years well stocked, all squandered 

now. 
At ending, he prevailed, and Reub was won 
To turn and follow. Jerry, though he knew 
Not yet the father's name, said he that way 
Was going, too, and he would intercede 
Between the truant and his father. Back 
Together then they went. But on the way. 
As now they passed from pines to farming-land, 



Il8 THE SILENT TIDE. 

The boy asked more. " 'T is queer you should 

have come 
From these same parts, and run away Hke me ! 
You did not tell me how it happened." 

JERRY. 

Foolish, 
All of it ! But I thought it weightier 
Than the world's history, once. I could not stay 
And see my brother married to the girl 
I loved ; and so I went. 

THE BOY. 

I had an uncle 
That was in love. But he — he drowned himself. 
Why do men do so ? 

JERRY. 

Drowned himself } And when ? 

THE BOY. 

I don't know. Long ago ; it 's like a dream 
To me. I was not born then. Deacon Snow 
Has told me something of it. Mother cries 
Even now, beside his grave. Poor uncle ! 



THE SILENT TIDE. 119 

JERRY. 

His grave ! 
{That could not be, then.) Yet if it should be, 
How can I think Grace cried — 

THE BOY. 

How did you know 
My mother's name was Grace .'* 

JERRY. 

I am confused 
By what you say. But is your mother's name 
Grace ? How ! Grace, too .'' 

A strange uneasiness 
In Jerry's breast had waked. They walked awhile 
In silence. This he could not well believe. 
That Grace and Reuben unhappy were, nor that 
One son alone was theirs. Therefore aside 
He thrust that hidden, sharp foreboding : still 
He trusted, still sustained a calm suspense, 
And ranged among his memories. "Tell me, son," 
He said, " about this Deacon Snow — Rob Snow 
It must be, I suppose." 



120 THE SILENT TIDE. 

THE BOY. 

Oh, do you know him ? 

JERRY. 

A deacon now ! Ay, once I knew Rob Snow — 
A jolly blade, if ever any was, 
And merry as the full moon. 

THE BOY. 

He has failed 
A good deal now, though, since his wife died. 

JERRY. 

What ! 
(Of course ; of course ; all 's changed.) He mar- 
ried ! 

THE BOY. 

Why, 
How long you must have been away ! For since 
I can remember he has had a wife 
And children. She was Gran'ther Hungerford's — 

JERRY. 

Her name was Ruth .'* 



THE SILENT TIDE. 121 

THE BOY. 

Yes, Ruth ! 'T is after her 
The deacon's nicest daughter 's named ; she V Ruth. 

Then sadly Jerry pondered, and no more 

Found speech. They tramped on sternly. To the 

brow 
Of a long hill they came, whence they could see 
The village and blue ocean ; then they sank 
Into a region of low-lying fields 
Half-naked from the scythe, and others veined 
With vines that 'midst dismantled, fallen corn 
Dragged all athwart a weight of tawny gourds. 
Sun-mellowed, sound. And now the level way 
Stretched forward eagerly, for hard ahead 
It made the turn that rounded Reuben's house. 
Between the still road and the tossing sea 
Lay the wide swamp, with all its hundred pools 
Reflecting leaden light ; anon they passed 
A farm-yard where the noisy chanticleer 
Strutted and ruled, as one long since had done \ 
And then the wayside trough with jutting spout 
Of ancient, mossy wood, that still poured forth 
Its liquid largess to all comers. Soon 
A slow cart met them, filled with gathered kelp : 



122 THE SILENT TIDE. 

The salt scent seemed a breath of younger days. 
They reached the road-bend, and the evening shone 
Upon them, cahiily. Jerry paused, o'erwhelmed. 
Reuben, surprised, glanced at him, and then said, 
" Yonder 's the house." Old Jerry gazed on him, 
And trembled ; for before him slowly grew 
Through the boy's face the mingled features there 
Of father and of mother — Grace's mouth, 
Ripe, pouting lips, and Reuben's square-framed 

eyes. 
But, mastering well his voice, he bade the boy 
Wait by the wall, till he a little while 
Went forward, and prepared. So Reuben stayed ; 
And Jerry with uncertain step advanced. 
As dreaming of his youth and this his home. 
Slowly he passed between the gateless posts 
Before the unused front door, slowly too 
Beyond the side porch with its woodbine thick 
Draping autumnal splendor. Thus he came 
Before the kitchen window, where he saw 
A gray-haired woman bent o'er needle-work 
In gathering twilight. And without a voice, 
Rooted, he stood. He stirred not, but his glance 
Burned through the pane ; uneasily she turned, 
And seeing that shaggy stranger standing there 



THE SILENT TIDE. I 23 

Expectant, shook her head, as though to warn 
Some chance, wayfaring beggar. He, though, stood 
And looked at her immovably. Then, quick 
The sash upthrowing, she made as if to speak 
Harshly ; but still he held his quiet eyes 
Upon her. Now she paused ; her throat throbbed 

full ; 
Her lips paled suddenly, her wan face flamed, 
A fertile stir of memory strove to work 
Renewal in those features wintry cold. 
And so she hung, while Jerry by a step 
Drawn nearer, coming just beneath her, said, 
" Grace ! " And she murmured, " Jerry ! '' Then 

she bent 
Over him, clasping his great matted head 
With those worn arms, all joyless ; and the tears 
Fell hot upon his forehead from her eyes. 
For now in this dim gloaming their two souls 
Unfruited, by an instant insight wild, 
Delicious, found the full, mysterious clew 
Of individual being, each^ in each. 
But, tremulously, soon they drew themselves 
Away from that so sweet, so sad embrace, 
The first, the last that could be theirs. Then he, 
Summing his story in a word, a glance, 



124 '^^^ SILENT TIDE. 

Added, " But though you see me broken down 

And poor enough, not empty-handed quite 

I come. For God set in my way a gift. 

The best I could have sought. I bring it you 

In memory of the love I bore. Not now 

Must that again be thought of ! Waste and black 

My life's fields lie behind me, and a frost 

Has stilled the music of my hopes, but here 

If I may dwell, nor trouble you, such a joy 

Were mine, I dare not ask it. Oh forgive 

The weakness ! Come and see my gift ! " 

Ah, tears 
Flowed fast, that night, from springs of love un- 
sealed 
Once more within the ancient house — rare tears 
Of reconciliation, grief, and joy ! 
A miracle, it seemed, had here been wrought. 
The dead brought back to life. And with him 

came 
The prodigal, repenting. 

So, thenceforth, 
A spirit of peace within the household dwelt. 
In Jerry a swift-sent age these years had brought, 



THE SILENT TIDE. 125 

To sofien him, wrought with all the woe at home 
Such open, gracious dignity, that all 
For cheer and guidance learned to look to him. 
But chiefly th' younger Reuben sought his aid, 
And he with homely wisdom shaped the lad 
To a life's loving duty. Yet not long, 
Alas ! the kind sea-farer with them stayed. 
After some years his storm-racked body drooped. 
The season came when crickets cease to sing 
And flame-curled leaves fly fast ; and Jerry sank 
Softly toward death. Then, on a boisterous morn 
That beat the wrecked woods with incessant gusts 
To wrest some last leaf from them, he arose 
And passed away. But those who loved him 

watched 
His fading, half in doubt, and half afraid, 
As if he must return again ; for now 
Entering the past he seemed, and not a life 
Beyond ; and some who thought of that old grave 
In the orchard, dreamed a breath's space that the 

man 
Long buried had come back, and could not die. 
But so he died, and, ceasing, made request 
Beside that outcast of the deep to lie. 
None other mark desired he but the stone 



126 THE SILENT TIDE. 

Set there long since, though at a stranger's grave, 
In heavy memory of him thought dead. 

They marked the earth with one more mound be- 
side 
The other, near a gap in the low wall 
That looked out seaward. There you ever hear 
The deep, remorseful requiem of the sea ; 
And there, in autumn, windfalls, showering thick 
Upon the grave, score the slow, voiceless hours 
With unrebounding stroke. All round about 
Green milkweed rankly thrives, and golden-rod 
Sprouts from his prostrate heart in fine-poised 

grace 
Of haughty curve, with every crest in flower. 



